


First of May

by inkvoices



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Community: be_compromised, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Multi, Swearing, does Clint care though, warning for typical Clint Barton childhood off screen, working title: cursed circus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: Clint is eight years old the first time he decides to run away and join the circus.  Like a lot of things in Clint's life, it doesn't work out, but then this is a circus that comes around every ten years and believes in second chances.
Relationships: Background Steve Rogers/James "Bucky" Barnes, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 28
Kudos: 56
Collections: be_compromised AU Exchange 2020





	First of May

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).



> Written for CloudAtlas in the be_compromised 2020 AU Exchange. I was spoilt for choice, but in the end decided there always needs to be more circus fic in the world. Hope you enjoy :)

Clint is eight years old when the circus comes to his small hometown. 

He's been packed and ready to go since he saw the first poster, because Barney has been talking about running away to join the circus and this is their chance. Only Barney says things aren't _that_ bad really, not yet, and they probably wouldn't get very far, and anyway he's got plans with his friends from school this weekend. 

Maybe Barney is right. Clint just wants to get far enough is all, away from the shouting and everything.

His brother leaves Clint standing in the field where the circus has set up, clutching a backpack containing his most precious possessions and all his savings. Which is not enough, it turns out, to be able to afford a ticket, but Clint is determined to at least see what he's missing out on and he knows there are ways around adults and their rules. He finds a gap in the red canvas and slips inside the huge tent not long after the music has started, walking normally, like he's supposed to be here. He sits close enough to a family with two boys that people will assume he's with them but just wants a bit of space from his annoying little brothers. Everyone is already focussed on the music and the lights and a girl in a feathery bird costume somersaulting around the ring, and no one gives him a second glance.

The show is _amazing_. It’s everything Clint has imagined a circus would be and more.

There's a ringmaster who announces everyone in a booming voice and directs all of the action, dressed in a shiny red and and gold suit with a tall top hat like he’s stepped straight out of a storybook. There's juggling and clowns and horses that prance around the ring with an Asian-looking lady balancing on their backs and leaping from one to the other. Best of all, there's a woman who can _fly_. 

The Black Widow climbs up silky ropes, as red as her hair, attached to the very top of the tent and, with one hand twisted up in them, soars over everyone's heads. She spins and dances in the air and tumbles down without ever hitting the ground. Clint's heart is in his throat, because normal people don't _do_ things like that. Normal people fall and they get hurt. But she's fearless, like nothing can touch her, and so strong, muscles flexing underneath her skin tight outfit. She's the most beautiful thing Clint has ever seen and he could watch her forever.

She's in another act later as well. This time at ground level, so Clint can see her face when she stands in front of a board for the Winter Soldier to throw knives at her. It should be scary. The mother of the family he's sitting near covers the eyes of one of her boys and hisses something to her husband about bad ideas. Clint isn't scared though, because the woman doesn't look scared. She looks like if the Winter Soldier misses then in a split second she'll turn the tables and be the one throwing knives at _him_. 

Clint's still sitting down, trying to soak it all in, when he realises that the family he'd attached himself to has long gone along with most of the rest of the audience and he’s caught the attention of someone who looks like security. A big blond man, vaguely familiar in a movie star kind of way, frowning at Clint and striding towards him. Maybe to see if Clint has gotten lost or something, but he's tall and his muscles have muscles and Clint isn't going to hang around to find out. He catches up with the tail end of the crowd, ducking between people as they move out of the tent and into the open air, buzzing with excitement.

Through the exit there's games, and popcorn and cotton candy stalls, and small tents lining a kind of walkway that funnels people away from the show. There's a lot of people still and they keep stopping to buy things, or pull kids away from wanting to buy things, slowing Clint down. When he looks up the blond man, who unlike Clint is big enough to make people move out of his way, is getting closer and closer.

Clint ducks through a bead curtain into one of the side tents to hide, one with no queue that looks dark inside. 

Until someone behind him strikes a match.

Clint has never seen a witch before, but then he'd never seen a lot of things until today and he doesn't think a witch that lives in a circus could be the bad kind. 

He knows that she's a witch because she's lighting drippy occult candles on a small circular table covered in a dark red cloth, like something in a horror movie Barney made him watch once. She has dark make-up around her eyes and lots of rings and earrings and bangles. And she has a handwritten sign propped up on the table that declares, in curly letters, that she's the Scarlet Witch. She also has a nice smile.

"Would you like me to tell you your future?" she asks, shuffling a deck of cards - ones with strange pictures on them, not clubs and hearts and diamonds. "Five dollars for a three card reading."

"I'm sorry. I don't have any money." Clint smiles back at her. "I'm going to join the circus though."

He is. He's decided. Once Barney sees how amazing all of this is he won't want to wait until things at home get worse either and, besides, it was Barney's idea in the first place. It's a great idea. Clint wants to learn how to never be afraid and maybe he can learn how to fly.

"Are you?" 

The witch examines him, from his old trainers and holey jeans to his cartoon backpack and messy hair, weighing him up. Clint stands as tall as he can and hopes he looks like he isn’t afraid of dirt rather than just someone who’s dirt poor.

"Well, not yet," she says, not unkindly. "You're a bit young."

"I'm _ten_ ," Clint tries, "and I have a big brother, he's going to come too."

"Maybe," she tells him, putting down the cards and standing up. "We’ll be here again, in ten years. Always."

Clint pulls a face, because ten years sounds like _forever_.

She's still smiling when she places a hand gently on his shoulder and walks him outside with her, pushing back the bead curtain with one hand. 

It's darker now and quieter. The blond man is standing still in the middle of the almost empty walkway, an island the last of the departing audience have to move around, looking for something. For Clint. Behind him Clint can see the Black Widow laughing at him, and the Soldier from the knife throwing act standing next to her. 

“Hey, Steve," the witch calls over to him, and it seems strange that circus people have normal names. The blond turns her way first followed by the others, frowning when he spots Clint and folding his arms. "Could you give this young man a ride home please? I still have to pack up."

Clint ducks his head, embarrassed, and tugs on the straps of his backpack as an excuse to hide from them all looking at him. He only likes people looking at him when he wants them to, when he’s asked for the attention, like when he knocks bottles over with coins at school and the other kids think that’s cool even though they still won’t play with him after. He definitely doesn't want Steve or the Soldier looking at him, or taking him home. They're both… big, and he can't help cringing away as Steve comes closer.

Steve stops and exchanges a look with the witch over Clint's head.

“I’ll take him, Wanda," the Black Widow offers, and Clint doesn’t know if that would be worse. What if she _talks_ to him? What should he _say_ to someone like her?

"Natalia, you sure?" the Soldier asks her and she smiles at him, but it's a sad smile, like when Clint's mom tells him everything is going to be okay. It's how Clint feels too on the inside at being made to leave.

"Thanks," Wanda says, patting Clint's shoulder before she abandons him to his fate.

Natalia drives an old car that smells like cigarettes and has a fuzzy toy spider dangling from the rearview mirror. She pulls up at the bottom of the road, before they reach his house, and Clint doesn’t ask how she knows to do that rather than use the driveway and annoy his dad. When she switches off the engine they sit in silence for a moment, Clint mustering the energy to get out and Natalia squeezing the steering wheel with both hands.

She has strong hands. She'd have to, to be able to fly like that.

"Is it hard?" he blurts out.

Natalia turns her head to look at him and raises her eyebrows.

"Flying. Standing still when someone's throwing knives at you."

She smiles, small and sharp.

"You have to trust in your skills," she tells him, "and your partner."

"Right." Clint thinks about this for a minute. "Do you throw knives at him sometimes as well though?"

Natalia tips her head back and laughs. 

Clint can't help grinning, even as he looks out of the window towards his house and hugs his backpack to his chest.

"Oh, I know how to throw knives," Natalia says, and, "You should come back to the circus. Tomorrow.” Clint’s eyes snap up to hers. "In the morning. I'll show you around."

Clint thinks he manages a ‘thank you’ before he tumbles out of her car.

He doesn’t end up going back to the circus the next day though, because his dad - well, he just doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, not really. The important thing is that he was invited.

18

Clint has aged out of foster care and is a free man, not that it matters because after their parents died he and Barney ran away from all that shit to join Carson's Carnival when they were kids. It's his first time back in this small town in years and fuck knows what he's doing here. He just didn't have anywhere else to go.

But it's ten years to the day and the circus is spread out before him, just like he remembers it.

Caron’s is a battered kind of carnival, pulled together from whatever works and whatever they could get a good bargain on. Now he’s older, and not blinded by the lights and sequins, he can see this circus isn’t perfect either. It’s old and worn, but unlike Carson’s it’s well taken care of. Clint can see how things were bought to match and where replacements, repairs, and a fresh coat of paint have been carefully applied.

This time Clint has got enough cash for a ticket, just, after the bus fare to get here. He’d caught Trickshot and Barney stealing from the carnival, not him personally. Apparently Barney had thought that made a difference. Clint hadn’t, and refused to be a part of it, so here he is.

It’s still a good show, with a good variety of acts. Some familiar and some new, including a trapeze turn that’s one of Clint’s favourites. The flyer looks like she’s having the time of her life throwing herself through the air and the black guy catching her never misses a beat. 

Natalia is on the silks again, flawless and brilliantly choreographed. It’s weird how adults look younger now that he’s grown up; she can’t be more than late twenties, early thirties. His memories of her have a tint of hero worship but, as she arches her back and loops red silk rope around her thigh, his body tells him now he’d rather worship her in a much more carnal way. He wants to run his hands down the sides of the perfect shape she makes, get his mouth on the nipples he can just see through lycra, be the one to make her fly out of herself. It’s an unexpected but not unwelcome twist in his plan to see if there’s an employment opportunity here for an ex-carny. 

Clint leaves before the end of the show to hunt down the gaffer’s trailer, tucked away in a corner of the back yard. He introduces himself as the Amazing Hawkeye and gives his pitch, adding that their show doesn’t have any western or impalement arts this season so he’d be a good addition, but from the outset he can tell by her face that it’s no good. Pepper Potts tells him that she’s sorry, they’re not hiring mid-season, and she wishes him the best of luck.

Luck isn’t something Clint’s on familiar terms with.

He ends up lingering in the midway, bow case over his shoulder and duffel bag in one hand, wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do now. 

There’s one stall at the far end that Clint watches for a while. It’s a ring toss with moving parts that bob up and down when the guy operating it turns a hand crank and, damn, but Clint admires whoever’s set this one up. It’s rigged to be completely impossible. There’s _maybe_ one throw that might work, that’d need to bounce off five targets and the timing would have to be _perfect_. 

“Interested?” the guy asks, pushing wire rimmed glasses up his nose, but Clint shakes his head. He doesn’t need a giant plush toy or whatever swag in his life.

“Clint?” a voice asks behind him, sounding pleased to see him which makes a nice change from how people usually say his name. “Clint Barton?”

“Natalia.” 

Clint grins. He has the sudden urge to show off after all, but she’s already pulling him into a hug so he’s got a prize for free.

“Natasha,” she corrects him as she steps back, still holding onto his shoulders as she looks him over. She presses cool fingers to his black eye, a souvenir from Trickshot and his asshole brother along with the bruised ribs, and headache that’s probably a concussion, and fucking _stitches_ he had to give himself because he can't afford fucking health insurance and hospitals. 

"You still have bruises," she says softly. Like it matters. Like _he_ matters.

Clint swallows. He wants to crack a joke, but he can’t think of anything. Thankfully Steve is close on her heels, with the Soldier and the trapeze guy, and breaks the moment with, “I hope you paid for your ticket this time,” and they all laugh.

Natasha has all these questions, about what he’s been doing with his life, so they end up taking him along when they all pile into an old truck to go for drinks, with Clint squashed next to Natasha in the back, her hair pulled back and the remains of make-up glittering on her cheeks.

There are two bars in this shithole of a town Clint grew up in and Steve drives past both of them, pulling up instead at the old diner where they order milkshakes and fries.

"I hope this isn’t for my benefit," Clint says, flicking a ketchup packet at trapeze guy’s head - _Sam_ , because they’ve all been properly introduced and shit now. Clint’s not old enough to drink alcohol, but he has and he does and drinking is the least of his sins.

"Entirely your fault," Bucky deadpans while Steve protests that he just wanted a milkshake. Clint likes them and it's not like they’re going to be around long, so he chooses to believe them.

Of course they end up talking shop. The circus swaps its acts around every so often, with cirky’s moving in and out of the spotlight, which isn’t how Clint thinks it usually goes but means they can talk about different techniques and have loads of stories. Steve prefers work behind the scenes and designs all the posters, Sam loves anything aerial, Bucky has done sharp shooting and knife throwing and speaks Clint’s language, and Natasha has the best jackpots. It’s the most fun Clint’s had in ages.

At one point he tells them that he tried to hire on, because there’s no harm and maybe, just maybe, it might help, but all it does is kill the conversation. Steve avoids Clint’s eyes as he finishes the last of his milkshake and Sam excuses himself for the restroom. Natasha just smiles sadly and squeezes his hand under the table. 

“Not a good idea,” Bucky says after the quiet has started to get uncomfortable.

Clint’s not stupid. It’s weird, like there’s some reason they’re not telling him, more than just the circus not hiring right now, but he bites his lip and brushes it off. It’s not like he isn’t used to people keeping secrets from him, even if he hates it, and he doesn’t want to ruin a good thing for the short time that he has it.

The circus stays in town for three days.

Clint hangs around for all of them, swallowing down anger that he can't keep this. Mostly he hangs out with Natasha, but he also helps Melinda muck out the horses one afternoon and listens to her grumble about animal rights activists, lends Steve a hand with a bit of carpentry, and challenges Bucky to some target practise.

Then they leave. 

Feeling out of options, Clint joins the army.

28

Ten years later Clint is back in Shithole, Iowa because of a fucking _farm_. 

Uncle Frank couldn't be bothered to take him and Barney in after their parents died, fine; Clint didn't bother going to his funeral. He’s still ended up inheriting the farm, since he's Frank's last living relative - or least the last one not in jail, because Barney; funnily enough he didn’t make it to the funeral either. Clint doesn’t wonder who did, if anyone did, doesn’t care.

He doesn't _want_ the fucking farm.

He’s got no good memories of this place, except as he hits the main road he sees a huge red tent pitched in the East Field and pulls the rental car over, breath tight in his chest as he remembers the smell of sawdust, sweat, and popcorn. The bright lights and applause. Sequins and glitter. Horse shit. Milkshakes and fries.

He hasn’t forgotten, not exactly, it’s just been buried under sand and screams and blood. He’d put away childish things. 

Clint gives into nostalgia and buys a ticket, leaving the car where it is. He’s only half an hour away from the farm. It can wait.

It’s not a bad show. They’ve got a decent high wire act. The clowns are boring slapstick, although it makes the kids in the audience laugh. The Globe of Death is the first turn to really capture Clint’s attention: a mesh sphere ball with two people on motorcycles racing around each other inside it at high speed, crossing over each other’s paths horizontally and vertically, helmets and wheels _almost_ touching. It gives him a sharp thrill of adrenalin to watch, cutting through the nothingness he’s felt since he left base on leave; he can only imagine what it’s like to actually do it. 

Then there’s Natasha. 

She doesn’t have an aerial act this time. He remembers wanting to fly. These days, sometimes he flies a jet.

Instead she does poi - swinging tethered weights, with coloured ribbons streaming from them, in patterns as she dances around the ring. It’s pretty and of course perfectly precise, but it’s not… what he’d expect from her. Until she exchanges the ribbons for fire. 

When the lights dim and the smell of smoke fills the tent for a moment Clint thinks he’s going to have to duck out, to escape the reminder of shit he’d rather not deal with, but he grips the edge of his seat tight enough his fingers go numb and makes himself stay. He’s always had limited amounts of Natasha-time in his life and the desire to keep what he can get outweighs the initial panic, until something inside him settles, stills, and he remembers that dangerous things aren’t always used to hurt.

Bucky is waiting for him after, leaning against the side of the rental and smoking a cigarette. He’s in motorcycle leathers, because _of course_ Bucky was one of the Globe of Death artists, and Clint can’t help but grin at that.

“Who was your partner?” he asks when he gets close enough.

Bucky bares his teeth in a white shark smile when he says, “Steve,” and Clint laughs. He looks Clint up and down, flicking ash to the ground. “Army?”

“For a bit.” Clint leans against the car next to him, metal warming his back through his jacket. “A few alphabet agencies. I’m in demand.”

“Sniper,” Bucky says. 

It isn’t a question. It gives Clint another flash of memory, a feeling this time, of being around his kind of people. Being known.

Bucky drops the cigarette butt, smudging it into the dirt under his boot. 

“Natalie’s just getting changed,” he says, and of course she’s changed her name again. “You sticking around?”

Clint looks down the road towards where a dead man’s farm is waiting for him, empty, the only thing left of his family and the only thing he owns besides a duffel of civilian clothes shoved in the trunk of the car he’s leaning against.

It’s an easy decision.

“Yeah. Sure.”

He follows Bucky to the back yard, where a motley collection of chairs and blankets have been arranged outside someone’s trailer to take advantage of the warm night. He takes a spot on a blanket, more used to sitting on the ground, and accepts a beer someone passes his way. Steve’s already there, on a cheap folding chair that by some miracle hasn’t collapsed under his weight, and Bucky settles on the floor at his feet, leaning back against his legs. Sam’s there too and a few others Clint doesn’t recognise. A couple of the clowns stop by for a beer before heading into town, taking everyone except Steve and Bucky with them, the pair of them wrapped up in their own conversation while Clint enjoys the peace and his drink.

“Clint Barton,” Natalie says when she arrives, a smile breaking out across her face. She doesn’t look a day older than when he last saw her, waving as she pulled out of this same field, her shitty old car towing a caravan to her next destination down the road. Still strong and amazing and hot as hell.

“Nat.” He keeps it short, because fuck all her name changes, and winks.

She throws herself down next to him on the blanket, loose tank top slipping off one shoulder and red hair escaping from a sloppy bun. He tucks a few loose strands behind one of her ears, fingers brushing her soft, warm skin.

“How _are_ you?” she asks.

Clint shrugs. 

“Want to hear something funny?” He takes a sip of his beer and then lets her steal the last of it, leaning back on his hands. “I own a farm.”

“Really,” Nat says with a smirk.

“Yeah. Perk of being the last Barton standing. I’m gonna sell it though, if I can get something for it.”

She rolls the empty beer bottle across the grass to bump against Bucky’s feet and then rolls onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow to study Clint’s face.

“No bruises,” she says, smiling, like everything that hurts always shows on the outside, and suddenly Clint is pissed, because he’d thought Nat knew better than that.

“Actually, honestly? I’m shit,” he bites out and gets to watch her face fall. “How about you?”

“Clint - ”

“Fuck it.” He takes a deep breath, tries to let go of the anger, and collapses flat on the blanket, staring up at the stars. “Maybe I’ll run away and join the circus.”

She sighs. Says quietly, “Not this one, Clint Barton.”

“And what the fuck is that even supposed to mean?”

“Honestly?” Nat leans over so he can see her face when she tells him, “Because you’re a good person.”

Clint rolls his eyes.

“Want to hear something funny?” She pokes him in the side, making sure that she has his attention. “I’m cursed.”

Clint blinks up at her and she laughs, and not in a way that means she’s finding something funny.

“All of us. This whole circus. Cursed.” Nat twists away and sits up, crossing her legs, before reciting, “Never to grow old and never to rest, never to die, never to stay in the same place and put down roots. Cursed to wander the earth forever. For the crimes that we have commited, the pain and death that we regret causing. We owe a debt.”

Clint sits up as well, reaching for her hand.

“Those who join us suffer the same fate,” she says, watching as he tangles their fingers together, “and I wouldn’t wish that on you.”

Clint glances over at the other two, for some hint that she’s having him on or for how worried he should be right now.

“We have a route,” Bucky drawls. “Different countries. We cycle through it every ten years. Most people don’t notice or really remember.”

“It’s not all bad,” Steve says, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair until the other man closes his eyes. “The time is meant to be a gift, for us to try and make up for the things that we’ve done. We get to use our skills to entertain people and make them smile, and we get to find ways to help people as we pass through. Remember that missing kid you found?” he asks, tugging a little on Bucky’s hair.

“Remember you found me,” Bucky mutters.

“And every so often,” Steve says, catching Clint’s eye, “there’s someone like you, and we get to see you grow up, and that’s amazing.”

“It’s a good life,” Nat agrees. “For us. More than we deserve.”

She squeezes Clint’s hand and sighs.

“So, you believe us?” Bucky asks, eyes still shut. He looks amused, like he knows Clint probably thinks that they’re jerking him around, but Nat’s never been like that and Clint… Clint has seen some crazy shit in his life. 

“More things in heaven and earth,” Clint says and Bucky snorts. 

He sits there, mulling it over, Nat’s hand warm in his. Compares their faces to the images in his memory for any signs of ageing and comes up short. Thinks about the skills they have and the ways they could be put to use outside of a circus; how Clint has used _his_ skills out in the world. Considers what ‘finding ways to help people’ might mean and remembers his parents’ car wrapped around a tree not long after the circus came to town.

He swallows and then, because he needs to know, asks, “Helping people ever involve killing people? If you think they deserve it.”

“Doesn’t fix as much as you’d think,” Bucky mutters and Steve adds, “That would be kind of the opposite of what we try to do.”

“Okay.” 

Clint studies the two of them, because it’s easier than thinking about what this means when it comes to Nat. It’s occurring to him that Nat never actually said Clint _couldn’t_ join the circus, just that people who join become cursed as well. If he chooses to believe that. In which case, good people must have joined before for her to know that… and Steve is the nicest person Clint knows, so...

“So, Steve, did you - I mean, when did you join Bucky?”

Steve looks puzzled, but Buck throws back his head and laughs, dislodging Steve’s hand from his head. Clint can’t remember seeing Bucky laugh like that before, had forgotten people _could_ laugh like that. It suits him.

“ _I_ followed _Steve_ ,” Bucky manages to explain eventually when he’s got his breath back. “Because this little shit joined the army and decided to slaughter his way across Europe.” Steve stiffens behind him and Bucky reaches back without looking to grab his hand. “There were Nazis, it was a whole thing. Then I got caught and brainwashed and did enough shit to earn this off my own back as well by the time Steve and the circus caught up with me.”

“Not your fault.” Steve leans forward to wrap his arms around Bucky, resting his chin on top of his head.

“Whatever, Rogers.”

Clint tries to wrap his head around _Nazis_ and where that probably means he finds Steve vaguely familiar from and gives up.

“I’ve been in wars,” he says instead. “I’ve killed people, hurt people. Done things I’m not proud of. I’m _not_ a good person, Nat.”

“I’d argue scale,” says Bucky, voice quiet, “but it’s the regret that counts.”

“Shut up,” Nat snaps. 

She lets go of Clint’s hand, but before he can miss her she’s shifting closer until he has to wrap his arm around her, not that it’s a hardship, and resting her head on his shoulder.

“You used to want to fly,” she says quietly as he breathes in the scent of her hair. “You were the Amazing Hawkeye.”

“Yeah, then I grew up.”

Clint doesn’t push it. Running away from it all is a nice fantasy, but he’s got a job he can’t go missing from and papers to sign for the fucking farm and, besides, it’s not like he deserves that kind of second chance. If it’s even real. He just has to hold onto what time he gets here and remember it better this time around.

Three days later, just before she leaves again, Nat asks for the farm’s address, which Clint still hasn’t made it to yet.

“What for?” he complains, even as she scribbles it on her arm with a cheap biro. “I don’t live there.”

“I’m going to send you postcards,” she tells him, a thoughtful look on her face. “There’s a whole amazing world out there, Hawkeye.”

“This one of your helping someone things?” he jokes, fighting to keep his hands to himself because the circus is starting to roll out and he needs to let go now.

“Yeah,” she says, seriously. “You. I choose you.”

Clint’s rarely been chosen for anything that he ends up liking, but he thinks he might this time. And maybe he’ll keep the farm after all.

38

Clint Barton lives back in Iowa now, on a farm, which sounds like some kind of a joke but apparently this is the kind of thing that happens when you retire. Or at least he’s retired from his previous occupation. His body may have a few miles left in it yet, but he’s long been running on fumes when it comes to... that kind of work. 

Killing. Hurting. Causing pain.

He does other things now. Tries to keep his footprint small and tries to help people where he can, to maybe make up in some small way for the things that weigh him down and haunt him when he closes his eyes. 

Nat sends Clint postcards from all over the world with short notes scrawled on the back about acts, people, places. Good things. He pins them up on a wall until it's covered in overlapping tiny windows to other worlds, scratching off the dates and any identifying information to protect her if anyone comes looking. Be that because of his (previous) job or any rumours about an immortal circus. The one with her email address and phone number on it - in code, naturally - is stored in a safe, along with a few explosive arrows and other things he can’t bring himself to get rid of. Just in case.

In return, Clint used to send her postcards with photographs of nature, birds and animals, or art. Generic and only ever posted from within the States, but ones he thought she might like. These days he sends her postcard sized pieces of card with sketches or plans on the front of what he's fixing up around the farm. Building a table. A porch. Fixing the roof. Small things, and on the back he writes small things about this small new life that he’s started to build, like the archery class he teaches at a summer camp for kids with the kind of background Clint is all too familiar with.

Kate - a young counsellor who insists that they’re friends and keeps turning up at his place when she needs some peace and quiet - complains he has all these postcards but he doesn't go anywhere, just stays in the middle of nowhere constantly fixing up a farm that he'll never call finished. Clint has been to a lot of places though, just not the way Nat shows them to him.

"I do other things," Clint says. "I mentor you."

Kate rolls her eyes.

"I made you." 

She did, and he loves her for that as much as anything. The little kids are great, but being able to hone Kate’s already advanced skills is the best part of this summer. He’s trying to persuade her to try out for the Olympics.

“What’re you gonna do when the summer is over?” Kate asks, stealing an iced tea from his fridge. 

Clint wriggles his fingers at her and she tosses him one as well before they make their way outside to lounge on the porch swing. Lucky - the one-eyed dog Clint rescued after he got hit by a car and looked after when no owner came forward to claim him - rouses himself from his afternoon nap to demand a belly rub before going back to sleep in the shade. He woke Clint up from a screaming nightmare last night, and without making it worse, so as far as Clint is concerned he can have all the belly rubs and naps that he wants.

“You still going to the West Coast with America?” he asks.

“Hell yeah,” Kate says, grinning. She presses the cold bottle of iced tea to the back of her neck before opening it and draining half in one go. “Starting with San Francisco. To travel!” 

She raises her bottle in the air in a toast and leaves it there until Clint joins in, tapping their bottles together.

“You know, speaking of travel. You know what you should do?”

“What?” Clint asks, wary.

“How about go find the woman that’s been sending you postcards for a fucking _decade_.” Kate turns to look at him, curling one leg up underneath her. “I mean, come _on_ , Hawkeye, that is commitment. That is a woman you go after, Jesus.”

“We email and text as well,” Clint says, hiding a smile by sipping his iced tea. “Sometimes we even video call.”

“Clint!”

The thing is, he knows that Nat’s here, in America. The circus is due to arrive in his hometown a few weeks after the summer camp finishes and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t counting down the days. He’s waiting, he guesses because that’s how it’s always been. The circus comes to town and for a brief, wonderful moment life is different. When Kate says it like that though, like he could just… go and meet her, Clint can’t think of one good reason why not.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, twisting his bottle around in his hands, wet with condensation. “Maybe I will. When camp finishes.”

At the end of the summer, Clint packs up after he’s waved Kate and America off and he packs like someone who doesn’t intend to come back. Always has done. He loads his most precious possessions into his secondhand truck, including a metal box full of postcards, locks up the farm, and sets off, with Lucky in the passenger seat with his head sticking out of the window to enjoy the breeze.

The sun’s setting and the show’s already started when they catch up with the circus. Clint leaves Lucky in the back of the truck with a bowl of water and a blanket, sleeping off all the excitement, and goes looking for a certain tent on the midway with a beaded curtain.

“Hi Wanda.”

“Clint.” Wanda wears fancier clothes and more jewellery when she’s being the Scarlet Witch, but the same warm smile. “Would you like me to tell you your future?” she asks, shuffling her deck of tarot cards. “Ten dollars for a three card reading.”

Clint quirks his eyebrows at the cost and she raises hers back.

“Inflation,” she says and laughs when Clint grins.

“I was thinking,” he says, settling on the wooden stool she uses for customers and dropping a ten dollar bill on her money tray, “that I might join the circus.”

Wanda examines him, from his boots and his well worn jeans to his lined face and tired eyes, weighing him up. He wonders what it is that she sees.

“Well, your timing’s pretty good,” she says, “but there’s the small matter of a curse that I believe you may have heard of.”

Clint shrugs. 

“Honestly,” he says slowly, watching her face carefully, “I don’t see it like that. Getting to spend an immortal lifetime surrounded by friends, supporting each other to be better, and entertaining people? Sounds more like a second chance than a curse and that sounds pretty good to me.”

“Never to die,” Wanda says as she shuffles the deck for a last time before her hands fall still. “Never to rest. Rather traditional.”

She lays out three cards on the table between them, one at a time, face down. 

“If you want a job,” she says, “Pepper’s the one you want to speak to.”

Clint glances down at the cards, then meets Wanda’s eyes. He doesn’t need her to turn them over when he’s already made his choice. All he wants to know is, “If I do, will she say yes?”

Wanda just smiles. 

She has a nice smile.

Clint waits at the back door for Nat at the end of the show. She comes running out of the ring, throwing her arms around his neck for a huge hug and coating him in glitter. He laughs, holding her tight and close, and lifts her just enough so that he can spin her around in a circle. One of the clowns flips them the bird for nearly knocking him over and Bucky rolls his eyes as he walks past, like Clint even cares right now.

“ _Clint_ ,” Nat says, still smiling and breathless when he lowers her back down. “Bucky said he’d spotted you back here.”

“And here I am,” Clint says, hands still on her hips because he can’t bring himself to let go and maybe this time he doesn’t need to.

Nat rests hers on his shoulders and studies his face.

“You could have waited until we at least reached Iowa,” she says, starting to look puzzled. “Unless, did you sell the farm?”

“No. Not yet anyway.”

Clint takes a moment to drink in the sight of her, right in front of him and in his arms. Red hair twisted up on top of her head, heavy make-up, sparkly skin tight outfit showing off toned muscles and every curve. Excited to see _him_ , like he’s a one man standing ovation.

She hasn’t changed, she never changes, and he could stare at her forever.

“Clint?” 

She pushes him back slightly with one hand, but Clint covers it with one of his own and holds on.

“Listen, I have regrets,” he tells her, as seriously as he can because he wants her to know that he means this. “But time spent with you has never been one of them. You’re the best person that I know, you make me try to be a better person, you’re amazing, and if I can have the chance to have more time, to see you every day, then I want that. If I can get a second chance, and with someone who thinks I’m worth taking a chance on...” He leans towards her slightly and rests his forehead against hers, breathes out her name. “ _Nat_.”

“Clint, what are you _doing_ here?” 

She’s smiling as she asks, but he thinks she might be crying as well and he brushes his thumbs across her cheeks to wipe the tears away.

Come to think of it, Clint might be smiling and crying too as he tells her, “I’m running away to join the circus.”

**Author's Note:**

> American Circus slang (definitions taken from [here](https://www.goodmagic.com/carny/c_a.htm)):
> 
> Back door = performer’s entrance to the big top  
> Back yard = area behind the big top where things are readied for a performance and housing trailers are parked  
> Catcher = trapeze act ember who catches the flyer in a return act  
> Cirky = circus employee, equivalent of the carnival’s ‘carny’  
> First of May = novice performer or worker in their first season, someone ‘green’ who’s new to circus life  
> Flyer = aerialist in flying acts which involve jumping through the air  
> Gaffer = circus manager  
> Jackpots = tall tales about exploits in the circus, ‘war stories’  
> Impalement arts = demonstrating accuracy by aiming at a human target and landing as close as possible without causing injury ie. knife throwing, archery  
> Midway = broadly the area where concessions, rides, and shows are located in a circus, located ‘midway’ between the entrance to the circus lot and the big top  
> Swag = midway game prizes, or souvenirs and toys  
> Turn = any act in the show  
> Western Arts = performance skills suitable for wild west shows ie. knife throwing, sharp shooting


End file.
